Rosetta Stone software

evidenced by difficulties in (a) configuration management,
(b) system delivery rates, and (c) less than satisfactory process definition in the organization.
These particular process problems were largely seen as solveable with the cur-
112
rent knowledge, management, and technology, but were never-the-less major practical
issues at this point in time in these organizations.
The opinion was stated by Brooks (1987) and picked up by Harel (1992) that the
main problem we have today is in specifying, designing and testing the “conceptual
construct” underlying the system. In this study we were interested to see if through the
efforts, developments, and products of recent years, the software problems were now
largely constrained to this “conceptual construct”, or whether major issues remained in
the design and construction of the software product.
Software engineering encompasses both technical and social components. Activities
such as “obtaining requirements, discussing design options, performing walkthroughs,
prototyping, and the like, are all intensely social in nature” (Hirschheim &
Newman 1991). It is in these software lifecycle sub-processes, that encompass a
higher degree of social components, that we see the relative lack of success as evidenced
by Jeffery (1992).

their requirements.”
“Our (requirements) process is currendy quite ad hoc. Problems are experienced
in understanding user requirements.”
“Keeping up with rapidly changing business requirements is difficult.”
“User requirements are hard to define. The systems do not meet their needs.”
The categories of strategic direction, user relationships, project management, and system
enhancement also centred around difficulties with requirements. For example,
“understanding the company strategy and managing the software process so that the
systems meet this is the main issue” according to one manager. In the area of project
management, the issue also came down to the difficulties of managing the process in
an environment of evolving and changing user requirements. A similar underlying
cause was evident in the category of system enhancement. As was stated:
“Maintenance is not a problem of coding, but one of understanding the user
needs. Maintenance issues are a function of user requirements.”
“The changing business requirement is hard to track. Maintenance is seen as a
back room function, but that is not where the issue is.”
If we combine the user requirements, user relationships, strategic direction, project
management, and system enhancement categories which all derive from requirements
issues, we see that they account for 22 of the 37 issues (59%) reported. Moreover, they
account for 20 of the 24 top two responses (83%).

Computational intelligence methods are evolving collections of method-
ologies, which adopt tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty, and partial
truth to obtain robustness, tractability, and low cost. Fuzzy logic, neural
networks, genetic algorithm and evolutionary computation are the most
important key methodologies. These advanced knowledge processing
methods have recently gainedRosetta Stone Chinese
more and more attention and have been suc-
cessfully applied in wide varieties of application fields, such as aerospace,
communication systems, consumer appliances, electric power operation
systems, manufacturing automation and robotics, process engineering,
transportation systems, and software measurement and estimation.

The category which had both the largest total number of responses as well as the larg-
est “most important” response was that of specification difficulties. Managers reported
the following.

“Our  software process     works  well  if  the  requirements  are  well  documented,
understood, and  signed off. When  this is not the case the process  is difficult to
control.”

“The  second most  important  issue  we  have  is  that  of  ensuring that  we  under-
stand the users’ requirements.”

“Our major concern is the provision  of sufficient manpower to liaise with users
in the field in order to understand their requirements.”

“Our  (requirements)  process     is  currendy  quite ad  hoc.  Problems  are  experi-
enced in understanding user requirements.”

“Keeping up with rapidly changing business requirements is difficult.”

“User requirements are hard to define. The systems do not meet their needs.”

The categories of strategic direction, user relationships, project management, and sys-
tem   enhancement  also  centred     around  difficulties  with  requirements.   For  example,
“understanding the  company  strategy and  managing  the  software process         so that  the
systems meet this  is the  main  issue”  according to one manager.  In  the area of project
management, the  issue also came down  to the  difficulties of managing  the process  in
an  environment  of  evolving  and     changing  user  requirements.    A  similar  underlying
cause was evident in the category of system enhancement. As was  stated:

i buy a rosetta stone english a month ago,and now my spoken english is very good,i like it very much.in the process of learning,i know the more you stury ,the better you get.

Another technical reason for the disuse was that it is only usable with internet access. The non-users, however, preferred to write offline and did not like to depend on internet access. Furthermore, the supply of a new online service was criticized. Since all services relevant to their studies should be accessible at one central point it was suggested that e3-portfolio should seamlessly integrate into the institutional learning management system. Beyond that the interviews showed that the additional benefit of e3-portfolio is not yet evident for many participants of the study program. There was a somewhat reserved attitude because the use of e3-portfolio was not obligatory when the interviews were conducted.

5 Summative Evaluation and Summary of Results

In the summative evaluation all registered users were asked via mail to participate in an online survey. One fifth of the approximately 150 registered users took part in the survey (n=31). The survey contained questions requiring general information on the participants. Here it was asked if they participate in the project groups and if they participate in the study program. Afterwards questions concerning the working styles 588 T. Sporer, M. Steinle, and J. Metscher in the project groups and usage of e3-portfolio were asked. Further questions were targeted on evaluating the users’ satisfaction with the functionality of the software and on gathering ideas for its further development. The most important channel of communication in the groups turned out to be e-mail. The designation of the second and third most important channels of communication was more heterogeneous.

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